Troubled
A month after Damon and Bonnie's disappearance, the sheriff of Mystic Falls decides to let the funeral commence. Everyone is going to be in attendance but Elena, who wasn't ready to accept the fact that Damon is gone. In her gut, if she shows up at the funeral it's as if she's accepted his death. And she wasn't ready for that yet. She's invested way too much into this, to turn back and say he's gone. To say Bonnie's gone too…
Jeremy, Caroline, Stefan and others have tried to tell her countless times that they're gone… and there is no bringing them back. The other side collapsing was final. The end. The beginning of the end of Elena's new life… without Damon.
She slept in his bed every night and bawled her eyes out. She lie on her side and rubbed her hand down one of Damon's jackets, wishing he was lying there to comfort her.
"You need to go, Elena," Caroline says, sitting on the edge of Damon's bed. Elena is curled up under the blankets, on her side. The bags under her eyes were puffy and red. Her face is as frozen as it was the day Damon and Bonnie died: her eyes huge and dark red and her hair a dirty shag to it. Everything looked stretched on her face, and in a very painful way.
She doesn't say anything to Caroline. Caroline sighs, her eyes rolling to the corner of her eye. She stands up.
"Fine, Elena. But Damon wouldn't want to see you being so weak," Caroline stares at Elena, waiting for a response from that cold remark. She turns around dramatically, her short black dress twirling with her, and walks out of Damon's room.
Out of all her friends, Caroline was the most adamant at letting Elena know that Damon and Bonnie are gone. They're gone and there isn't anything Elena can do. She battered it into Elena's mind on a constant setting, a repetitive hurtfulness to it, from Elena's angle anyway. Caroline was just trying to give Elena some tough love, and Elena hasn't been this upset since Jeremy first died, so Caroline knew tried to take a different angle this time around. But Elena didn't see it that way.
At least Stefan, Tyler, and the others tried to help, but Caroline had no hope at all. That hurt Elena and instilled a bit of hostility in her towards Caroline. Though she's lifeless at the moment, and continuously filling herself with false hope, she still has a passion somewhere and right now, it's filled with anger... Anger for Caroline.
Elena gripped the sheets of Damon's bed, her face still so emotionless. She's on the edge of falling, on the verge of collapsing, of diving down a well of despondence.
Later that night, Caroline and the others came back to the mansion to have a small get together. Elena stormed down the stairs and into the Salvatore living room.
"Guys! I know where Damon and Bonnie are! They're in another dimension or… or… " As Elena hesitates to find the right words, the others look on. Stefan removes the glass from his lips and sits it on the table. He moves around it to get closer to Elena. He shakes his head and she looks, her eyes filling with water.
"Elena…" He says, showing her calming eyes.
"No. No… I just told you where he was… I…" She continues, her spider-like fingers running through her hair. She grabs at her hair, embarrassed at the disagreeing looks staring at her.
Matt rises off the sofa and walks up to Elena. "They're gone, Elena. We tried to help you find them, but… it's over."
Elena tightens her lips and shakes her head slowly. She takes a few steps back, running into Jeremy. He tries to console her in his grasp, but she wiggles out of it.
"You all think I'm crazy," Elena yells. Everyone had something to say, or they either shook their head, but the only thing Elena heard out of those were Caroline's remarks: "Yeah, pretty much!"
She glares at Caroline, an evil rising within her, and she launches and tackles her to the ground. Stefan sprints over and throws Elena off of her. She tries to run back at her, but Stefan turns around, stopping her and pushing her out of the mansion. He slams the door behind her.
"Elena, you've got to stop this," Stefan says to her, his head at an angle.
"Me?" Elena says pointing to herself. Her eyes swell with water. "I only tried to tell you guys what I knew and you all didn't care!"
"Because you're in denial, Elena! We want to understand you, but you have to understand us. Every time you talk about him, every time you bring him up—" He puts his fist over his mouth, trying to hold in tears, "It brings us back to that horrible, horrible place where we realized we're never getting them back."
Elena backs away, nodding and looking away from Stefan. She can understand where he's coming from. How selfish she's been, and how implicitly cold her actions have become. She sighs, and wipes the tears from her face. Her and Stefan stand in each other's presence, the attraction from the beginning that'll be there till the end toiling between them and omitting an understanding from both of them. Stefan opens his arms and Elena falls into them, she doesn't sob. Only a tear falls from her swollen, bloodshot eyes.
Stefan, however, is shaking while holding Elena. He's hugging her so tightly and so close, and for some reason, he doesn't want to let her go. It's like, she's the only who can get him through all of this… because he hasn't shed one tear since Damon died. But him and Elena, with some binding and intangible connection, he seems to fall right into her arms and let out his frustration, anger, and torment.
After a while, Stefan pulls away.
"Thanks for that, Elena… I really needed that."
Elena nods nonchalantly. She walks passed Stefan and into the mansion, not looking at one curious face in there. She turns the corner and runs into Tyler.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" Tyler says, helping Elena up.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" She asks him, not looking for an answer, more out of annoyance.
"I'm heading back to campus," He says, getting ready to walk past her. She stops him, placing her hand on his chest.
"Campus? Whitmore?"
"Nah, Mystic Falls Community—Yes! Whitmore!" He says looking at her with a smile.
"Can you wait here a second?"
"O..kay."
Elena walks away, towards the stairs. Tyler puts his hands in his pocket, walking into the living room. He sees Caroline, looking as elegant as a butterfly in that black dress, and approaches her. Caroline turns around.
"Oh, hey," Caroline says, smiling indefinitely. It's been awkward for the two of them, Caroline sort of wanting to start things again with Tyler and Tyler on the road of moving along with his life. He loves Caroline, but is he in love with her? It faded once she did the dirtiest thing she could ever do to Tyler. He accepted what she did and, though he faults her for it, he doesn't hold it over her head. Not anymore. He's back to his old self now, his hot-headed and mean by nature type of self, and holding grudges is the last thing that should be on his mind.
Tyler smiles, a fake one. She notices but doesn't say anything.
"Hey, Care," He says, his head turning around, looking for Elena.
"You getting ready to go?" She asks, her eyes straightening a bit.
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for Elena." Caroline gives a disapproving look.
"Elena? What is she doing?" Tyler shrugs and Elena walks into the living room, a rolling suitcase with her. Her hair is in a messy ponytail as she walks towards Caroline. She's holding a bunch of papers in her hand and shoves pass Caroline, throwing them in the fireplace. Caroline holds her mouth open in dismay as Elena walks back to her suitcase and walks out of the mansion.
Stefan sees her and is speechless, he's not sure what to say or what to think. One minute she's on a different plane of existence, somewhere in a field of despondence. And now she's completely flipped a switch, she's out of bed and she's being active. What changed her mind? Who knows, really.
Tyler walks out of the mansion and sees Elena standing by his car. She grabs on the door handles of his locked car, agitated.
"It's locked, Tyler," She tells him, pursing her lips. He unlocks them from his keychain.
"I'm aware," He says to himself and wondering what plan Elena has up her sleeve now. He was there for her, helping her when she needed it most. But anything drastic, anything out of the ordinary, and he's leaving her on the street. No need to bring the delusional negativity of Elena Gilbert into his presence… it's a long car ride and Tyler just wants to have some peace after everything that went down.
He shuts the door and begins to start the engine. Elena sits the passenger seat back and turns her head towards her window, ready to get some shut eye.
"Elena, what're you doing?" Tyler asks her, the question begging to be divulged from his mind. He is just as baffled and shocked as Stefan. Seeing her do this one-eighty, from a lethargic kind of depression to actively depressed. It's obvious she's hurt still, but whatever lit a fire under her butt has got her on her feet. Tyler wants to know why, and it's his car—my freaking car— he thought, and he has every right to know.
"I don't want to be here. So, I'm going with you," Elena says, her eyes fixated on the window. "Whether it's Whitmore or somewhere else. Just far away from here."
Tyler considered the idea of a road trip. Dropping all ties of Mystic Falls, not telling anyone, releasing their inhibitions and just going on a trip to some random place. With Elena Gilbert though? That would be kind of awkward, but not for Elena. She didn't care where she went, or who she was with, just as long as it was far from Mystic Falls and the group of people she cared about most. She just needs time away from them. To deal with the death of Damon on her own terms and on her own time, because at the end of it all, it's only her. So, it may be selfish, but she's doing what she thinks she has to do in order to rise above all this.
"What made you change your mind? I mean, you've been lying in your bed all day since Damon and Bonnie disappeared," He says her. She turns to face him and just shrugs, the cold, heartless face slowly dissipating… entering the fearfulness that she's been holding at bay.
Tyler could understand. The quick switch, an almost timeless shift, almost as if she's some kind of yin and yang. It happened to him. Going from wolf, to hybrid, and back to human with the maddening temperament of his old self. The only difference is the will of it all: unwillingly for Tyler and willing for Elena. Time will reveal the impacts, the consequences… but until then…
Tyler puts the gear into shift and reverses out of the driveway. Elena stares at the Salvatore mansion. She'll never forget it. She'll never forget Damon.
